ISLAMABAD: As another multinational pharmaceutical company winds up its business from Pakistan, its employees — apprehending massive layoffs under new management — are seeking assurances of job security and demanding handsome severance packages, in line with the company’s international policies.

However, the management of Bayer maintains that it has sold its assets to a local company, which has assured existing employees of job security for at least two years, adding that since these workers would continue to be employed, there was no call for severance packages to be handed out.

Bayer is the latest international pharmaceutical firm to wind up its business from Pakistan. In Nov 2022, American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly announced it was exiting the country.

Local employees of the German-based MNC held a protest at the National Press Club this week, demanding that the company pay them 60 to 100 months’ salaries — ostensibly at a par with the company’s termination policies elsewhere in the world.

At the demonstration, affected employees appealed to the president, prime minister and chief justice to take notice of their plight and ensure that the company does not deprive them of their due rights.

The employees’ lawyer Malik Ashfaq Ahmed told Dawn that according to his clients, the company had violated its own rules.

“The company has sacked 450 field and marketing employees, but refused to give them layoff packages. The company has sold its assets in Pakistan to a local company but has not given the layoff package to around 450 employees, which is also a violation of basic human rights,” he said.

“The employees are here to appeal to the decision makers to intervene and ensure that the company follows its own policy. It is not appropriate that when companies lay off employees in the West they follow the laws and rules, but in developing countries they just ignore their own rules,” he said.

One of the protesting employees said that while workers of Bayer were eligible to get a handsome severance package, since the company has been sold off to a local firm, they could not expect similar layoff terms after the two-year period of job security expires.

“This means that the local company can fire us after two years,” he said.

However, Bayer Pharma Managing Director Dr Imran Ahmed Khan told Dawn it was unfortunate that the company’s employees were “spreading misinformation”.

“Not a single employee has been sacked. The fact is that Bayer has sold its assets and shares to a local company. In the agreement, it has been made sure that the local company will retain employees at same salary packages and will not sack anyone for two years,” he said, adding that the total number of their workers was around 250, far less than the number employees were claiming had been sacked.

He claimed that all employees had signed offer letters issued by the local firm which state that they have two-year job security, and consequently there was no logic behind the demand for handsome severance packages, as no one was being laid off.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2023